1.2.13-Trisshawkeye
Brick Club: 1.2.13 Petit Gervais I shall enjoy a brief rewind, as this is still one of my favourite chapters so far. I took a few big things away from this chapter: 1. Kindness hurts. It’s amazing (and so true) how Hugo describes the pain of receiving kindness from the Bishop. It’s such a strange thing, but after nineteen years of torment, in which Valjean learned to hate the world because it hated him, he is forced to abandon that viewpoint, because he has been shown love. And a shattered worldview, for whatever reason, is painful because it forces you to rebuild your perception of reality. 2. Grace forces change. The kindness of the Bishop leaves Valjean in a position where he realises that the one thing he cannot do is stay the same. Until now, his hatred has been reactive to what has been given to him, but should he continue on his path of hate after also having been shown love, he proves himself to be a creature of hate and becomes not just reactive but evil. Whereas if he would respond, he must respond with love, and that involves a complete change to his nature. Either way, he has no choice but to change, and to change is painful. 3. There is no such thing as a small sin. The theft of forty sous from a child will haunt Valjean for years to come. This is in fact echoed somewhat later on, during Valjean’s dilemma over Champmathieu, in which he realises that the praise of thousands of people will not serve to cancel out the curses of one man he has doomed. Hugo challenges a utilitarian, quantitative approach to goodness, maintaining that the suffering of an individual is important in any circumstance. In short, this chapter is FULL OF PAIN, but it’s a transforming pain, the pain of changing character and identity, which I think really does tie in to what the Bishop meant when he said that he had bought Valjean’s soul for God. Commentary Pilferingapples Oh NO, I’m crashing and I find all this glorious discussion about utilitarian morality? Sorry I’m not as shiny as this post deserves right now! I feel there’s a distinct difference in the robbery and the later Champmathieu affair, though, in that it’s not just the praises of others concerning Valjean then, but their well being. That’s the utilitarian bit, and I will be nattering about it A LOT when we reach that point. Here, though, there’s no real benefit to the theft; Valjean isn’t harming one to help many, or even harming one to help himself. Those 40 sous aren’t going to make any difference to him. But his place as Maire, that does matter to a lot of people…and still Hugo seems to come down on the side of one person’s life being tantamount in importance. Oh, the Things I shall have to say. Incoherently, but still. (also yes, the shock to the system of kindess after abuse— poor Valjean, he’s basically had an emotional purgative and is just tossing everything’s he swallowed back at the world right now. And poor Petit-Gervais, standing right there in the spill zone…)